Forgotten Woman Leader for Social Reformation in Tamilnadu

We read many women leaders of Tamilnadu from the newspapers , magazines, books and from the a vast collections in search engine’s archive. But there are invisible women leaders, who took a lead among  successful men in their times, for social reformations and strengthening an oldest community people,  descendants of Pallava  kings.

 I wish to share about one such great young  woman of 27 years , of Tamilnadu, who lead The Vanniyakula Kshatriya First Women’s Conference , held at Ammur in North Arcot  Jilla, 70 years before, on 4^th March 1945, prior to independence in the world war time. She addressed the gathering on the communities ups and downs, Education, Women’s Duties and Village Development.  As the speech was in Tamil, I am not a competent enough to do an exact translation and so given here the brief content in my way, not contradicting the original speech.

( My sincere request to all the readers is, please go through the complete text of the speech as I believe all of us could read Tamil well, so that the minute detail of Smt.Dhayanidhi Devi’s speech can be enjoyed and  proudly shared to our next generation).

A brief biography about the noble woman :

Name : Smt. Dhayanidhi Devi

Daughter of : Sri.Raju Nayagar & Smt.Kanakambujam

Spouse:  Sri.N.R.Muniswamy Nayagar ,B.A.,B.L.,( Advocate )

Born on : 8^th August 1918

Married : 1^st July 1942 ( @Arakonam )

Died on : 14^th May 1962

Children : Four sons ( Sr.M.Chandarashekaran, Sri.M.Mohan, Sri.M.Devendiran and Sri.M.Sampathkumar)

The speech goes on like this. She addressed the women as ‘Sisters and Mothers’  and thanked all for honoring her to be the Felicitation Committee Head of the First  Women’s Conference of Vanniyakula Kshatriya Community and expressed her profound thanks to all for  getting together from all places in  and around the state.

She talked about the tough time of war, faced by all Indians and the economic constraint in all the states and gave hope to all that the war will end soon and victory and peace will surely come  for us. She also pointed out that wartime emergency support had been extended to the extent possible and may pardon if there is any shortfall. The ext topic she took was about Vanniyakual Kshatriya Community’s  ancient graceful days and present  lowness. We are the descendents of Chera , Chola, Pandiya Kings and Pallava kings, who ruled Kancheepuram and Mahapalipuram as capitals.

Though the population was about 40 lakhs, the community people holds a backward position in government positions and social orders because of spending money lavishly for mundane functions. But population keeps increasing.

Her  exemplary talk on ‘Education’  speaks on the importance of  at least secondary education  for our community people who cannot afford the expenses of higher education and try to use the P.T.Chengalvaraya Naicker’s free education schemes for higher education. Unless we are educated, we cannot achieve our goal of uplifting our people in the society. In our villages still people are illiterate and blindly put their thumb impression wherever a signature is required. Work oriented education will be helpful if anyone who could not pursue higher education.Now only few of our community  people are in city as  doctors, advocates , teachers and in government jobs. We should be given an important place in the society and our propaganda only can make our effort to attain the equal status among all.

She gave a wonderful  talk on the duties of women folk of our community. How to bring up our child for the better future of them in the society was stressed by her. Hygiene , education, good habits, character development, duty, dignity and divine  are the qualities to be inculcated among our children. Women are called as “Graha Lakshmi” and they have to live up to that. She explains how to receive the husband who comes from work and how a wife can support to the best possible way to add the house income by doing small craft works etc.

On the topic of Village Development , she insisted “ no to drinks “ and how to have a clean and healthy environment for self and the community. We have to build reading room, night school, co-operative bank and frequent meetings to socialize our community people.

Social Development depends on all the above reforms and  men and women should work selfless. Unity, self defense, patience,  continuous effort, belief in God, cooperation, peace, good thought and sacrifice will definitely  bring us success to  our community people in all walks of life. Respecting one’s God and  having a brotherhood relation among all community people is important.

She thanked the gathering for their patience hearing at the end.

To conclude this write up, I wish to share that Smt.Dhayanidhi Devi was my  sister Vasanthamala’s husband and my brother-in-law,Sri.M.Chandarashekaran’s mother .

Let us be proud of the great soul and there are many take away from her speech, which is applicable to all of us even today for a better living, family relationship and social responsibility.

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